A fast food diet of Coke and McDonalds bloats us out and leaves us still feeling hungry.

A digital junk-food diet does the same to our brains.

So lately I've been cleaning up my digital diet.

It's amazing how by applying the criteria 'only consumate quality' I very quickly reduced an overwhelming list of unworthy email newsletter subscriptions to three or four sources that are really worth paying attention to.

Maybe 18 months ago I radically reduced my Google Reader feeds to about 12-15 (from about 85+) and followed just those few. It worked really well.

Then one day I just kind of needed a break from it all, and stopped looking at my Reader for a while. I haven't looked at it in months!

I now just visit three or four sites (I don't even have them saved, I just know the URLs) and that's enough for me.

(I don't know if you ever read Ev Bogue's Far Beyond The Stars blog a couple of years ago? Anyway, he wrote a post about how he now only had four things in his life to focus on. I think at the time it was reading, writing, yoga and cooking. Narrowing it down so much allowed him to give each of these few his full attention...

...Also, have you heard of David Sedaris's Four Burner Theory? http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/08/24/090824fa_fact_sedaris)

I read the article at the link you posted, Dan. I immediately felt that if the price of 'success' is cutting out two of my burners, I'll stay a happy failure! I guess it comes down to what one's personal idea of 'success' is - mine would be to have all four burners firing on full ;) I've long since realised that going on an 'activity diet' just makes me feel unbalanced. I'm a very multi-faceted person and I need to feed all my sides or I get depressed. The plus side is that when I feel happy, I can create really fast ;)

Reply

Cherry Jeffs

24/4/2013 10:47:10 am

Although, of course Dan, it's always good to trim away what no longer serves us. I'm definitely all for that!

I've been wondering what you've been up to and suddenly remembered I could find you on face book which led me to your new blog. I've been enjoying catching up. Plenty of food for thought here. Digital junk food.... that's a good way of putting it. It's taken me a while but I realize it is time to cut back drastically if I'm going to get my work back on track. Pinterest is my digital chocolate and I know it's going to be difficult to cut back but it's either fritter away precious time or create something wonderful.

Thanks for the visit, Robyn :) Why not schedule in several sessions a week for 'filling the well' including things like Pinterest, watching art videos or reading good blogs? If you schedule them for times when you know you won't be productive (For me that's late evening or a morning after I've taught late the night before), then you won't feel you are frittering time you should be spending on your art. (Not that I can imagine you doing that anyway!)